The Beauty that Surrounds Me

 As I take the backroads down to Mom's house, I am surrounded by cornfields and soybean fields.  The beauty of this trip is the ever-changing crops on each side of the road. The story begins in the Spring with the turning of the earth. I often see large tractors turning up clouds of dust as they sow the seeds that begin the kaleidoscope of colors for the following months.  

The brown earth lays unbroken for most of the first week. Then, little by little, equally spaced bits of green poke through the dirt as the seedlings break the ground. With each trip to Mom's for the next several weeks, I see less and less brown and more and more green until finally, I see no brown at all but verdant green be it corn or soybeans. 

While the soybeans grow slowly compared to corn, over a period of 3-4 months the beans attain their full height of 3-4 feet. Corn, now that is another amazing miracle! Initially, corn can grow up to 8 inches or more in a day if the weather is hot and humid, which is the weather that corn grows best.  In a  matter of 6-8 weeks, corn will reach a lofty height of 8 feet or greater. I find it very amazing to see the stages of corn. Each season, the farm fields surrounding my home are planted with either soybeans or corn and occasionally wheat.  I have spent 34 years watching these fields surrounding my home and  along the roads I take to visit Mom grow, mature, and harvested which completes their life cycle.

As a native-born Hoosier, I also think about my life cycle. I grew up a country girl surrounded by farm fields to which I paid very little attention.  Only in the last half of my life have I taken the time to notice my environment and the life that is here.  Compared to a cornstalk, I like thinking I am currently ripening the ears on my stalks and I am starting to turn brown on the bottom of my stalk. How long it takes for me to be harvested, like the corn, is totally up to my master. He and He alone knows when that will be. 

This much I do know, I must bloom where I am planted and I am planted in Indiana soil.  It is here my life cycle begins and will end even though I yearn for other places. I know what to expect here.  I know the seasons, I know what weather to expect in any given season.  It is here I will stay. I am committed to the soil and the life that it brings.